Blog
News in the Line of Fire: Calling on support from U.S.news organizations
- By: ASNE staff
- On: 12/06/2010 16:01:00
- In: Freedom of the press
Catalina Botero, of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, told a two-day meeting of border news editors that often U.S.-based news organizations can use their better protected media platforms to report wrongdoing and injustices that their Latin American counterparts are fighting and dying to publish: “We do not want heroes,” she said, in Spanish. “We want journalists who can continue to do their jobs in safe conditions.”
EL PASO, Texas – The chief advocate for freedom of the press in Latin America called on U.S. news organizations to support the battle of their colleagues south of the border by not letting that ongoing story disappear from their news columns and from the litany of their public discourse.
Catalina Botero, the special rapporteur for freedom of expression of the Interamerican Commission on Human Rights, told a two-day meeting of border news editors that often U.S.-based news organizations can use their better protected media platforms to report wrongdoing and injustices that their Latin American counterparts are fighting and dying to publish.
“We do not want heroes,” she said, in Spanish. “We want journalists who can continue to do their jobs in safe conditions.”
Botero, who is based in Washington, spoke via Skype from her native Colombia to those attending News in the Line of Fire, a bilingual summit of U.S.-Mexico border editors convened by the American Society of News Editors and the Inter American Press Association on the campus of the University of Texas at El Paso. Ricardo Trotti, IAPA's director of press freedom projects, interviewed her.
Botero recently spent several weeks in Mexico, where 12 journalists have been killed so far this year, and 57 have been slain since 2000. Many of the most recent deaths are believed to be related to ongoing drug wars involving organized crime. Most of the shootings have not been solved.
Although organized crime is a fundamental factor in the situation that has led to the recent deaths, she said, it is not the only factor.
“We have an institutional problem because the government that is supposed to defend the press is unable to do it, and in other cases, they don't want to do it,” Botero said. Despite the existence of a federal special prosecutor for crimes against freedom of expression and pledges from President Felipe Calderón to step up safeguards, Mexico is way behind other Latin American countries in its efforts to protect journalists, she said.
Many new institutions and mechanisms have been created to address the concerns, Botero said, but many lack the resources and the power to be as effective as those in other places, including Colombia and Chile.
Related Articles
ASNE and IAPA to host Summit on Violence Against Journalists Along Mexican Border
News in the Line of Fire: Border editors
News media coalition launches Mexican Free Speech campaign